How do you view women who say they've been battered
by their husbands, sexually harassed or otherwise victimized by a man? Do you
feel a stab of skepticism at the accusation and wonder whether the man involved
will be treated fairly in court? If so, you may be experiencing a consequence
of PC feminism.

As a woman who has been severely battered
and worse, I take issue, not with those who doubt but with feminists
who have cheapened the real pain of women by attaching a political agenda to it.

The ideological opportunism of those feminists has
made otherwise humane people look with suspicion on "victims." If a woman says her
estranged husband molested their daughter, is she merely trying to prejudice the
family court regarding custody? If she claims harassment at work, do you wonder
if a hapless man merely said the word "honey?"

At this
point, too many people have had husbands, sons, brothers and male friends endure
false accusations and anti-male courts. Reasonable people are now automatically
skeptical of victimhood. Humane people now reserve their compassion until more
evidence is in. After all, it is not merely the pain of women but also the compassion
of those who sympathize that have been used to promote the feminist agenda.

What
is this agenda? It rests on the assumption that all women are victims of all men.
That's the definition of patriarchy:
white male culture, white male government that benefits every man at the expense
of every woman. Women are everywhere and always oppressed by men.

Translating
this agenda into practical terms ... It says that, in court proceedings on domestic
violence cases and child custody disputes, men should be guilty until proven innocent.
Society's institutions, such as universities, should be organized to protect women
against men: For example, through sexual abuse tribunals that do not allow accused
men the right to such niceties as a lawyer or questioning his accuser.

Concerned
parents are withholding compassion from your daughters because they are worried
about justice to their sons. PC feminism has created a gender war in which daughters
and sons are pitted against each other in the courts and institutions of society.

A
growing number of women are objecting. They are refusing to bow before what has
become an object of political worship -- the graven image of "woman as victim."
The price for heresy can be high. I know. For some feminists, any sense of decency
or concern for women is suspended if the woman thinks for herself and disagrees.

Consider
a recent incident. In an article last month, I expressed skepticism over the Battered
Woman Syndrome -- a legal defense used to exonerate women who kill abusive
men in the absence of imminent danger. The article is the last in a series that
questions the prevailing domestic violence policies. How did feminists react?

The
head of a feminist organization created a vicious lie about me and circulated
it. The lie: I am a drug addict who supports the father's rights movement because
it supplies me with drugs. Her exact accusation was that the father's rights movement
is "providing you with drugs in exchange for positive publicity and a steady stream
of attacks on their adversary."

(I repeat the slander
verbatim because, otherwise, it is difficult to convey the depths to which such
feminists will sink to silence a woman who dissents.) The slander was circulated
to an employer in what I must presume was an attempt to harm my career.

This
is not an isolated incident. Three weeks ago, I talked with a younger woman who
wants to become an established columnist. She advocates political incorrectness,
and does it well. Well enough to receive threats to her safety that make her father
fret. She now has to weigh her freedom of speech against possible assault and
damage to her father's health.

How many other women have
been battered into silence by PC feminists? Especially in academia, where political
correctness holds sway ... how many women have feminists intimidated into never
speaking out at all?

At times I wonder whether the feminists
who write harassing and threatening e-mails to other women ever pause and question
their own decency. They claim to care passionately for women and to speak for
womanhood as a category. But, to paraphrase Sojourner
Truth:

"Aren't we all women?"

When
I contemplate such questions, I remember an e-mail I received from another prominent
feminist. She responded to an article
in which I described having lost sight in my right eye due to being battered.
She literally crowed with pleasure, declaring that now she understood my political
blindness.

What sort of human being delights in the damage
inflicted on a beaten woman? Who uses a woman's physical disability as a weapon
to attack her? Whatever the answer is, it cannot be "a real feminist" or anyone
who gives a tinker's damn about battered women.

Real feminism
aims at genuine equality and good will between daughters and sons. It eliminates
the need for parents to choose which of their children are to be privileged by
the courts and other institutions of society, and which are to be oppressed.

Perhaps
then women who are true victims will be able to claim what they justly deserve:
the automatic compassion of decent human beings.

Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is
the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, Liberty
for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute,
2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.